Guaranteed NBA contracts prove all too costly

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I'll tell you who should chip in to build a new arena for the Seattle SuperSonics. Jim McIlvaine. Calvin Booth. Jerome James. Vin Baker. Patrick Ewing. Kenny Anderson. Danny Fortson. Those and many others should cough up multiple millions as a performance rebate for money stolen while on the Sonics' payroll.The Sonics could have financed a new arena out of their own pockets with the money they've thrown away on slew-footed centers alone. Compound that with similar fiscal atrocities around the league, and it's one obvious reason why the fundamental NBA economic system leads to annual operating losses in so many cities.Mistakes are uncorrectable in the NBA. They sit on the bench and gobble money.We can rightfully scatter-shoot blame for the Sonics' potential departure at a series of owners, personnel managers, politicians and Okie carpetbaggers. But the system is a primary underlying reason why sweetheart leases, luxury suites and public subsidies seem necessary.There's the soft salary cap, the cap exceptions, the practice of taking on huge salaries of dried-up players to clear room for future roster maneuvering. But mostly, it's an issue of guaranteed contracts that reward obsolescence by paying in the present for performances in the past.It's all too complex to detail, with the mid-level exceptions, the Larry Bird exception, the luxury tax, the sign-and-trade provisions, etc. But the root of it is in the collective bargaining agreement's provision for guaranteed contracts.And it's not just an issue here. Philadelphia was on the books for $15.8 million this season to Chris Webber, as part of last season's buy out. Portland gave Steve Francis $13.6 million to go away. The Knicks paid James, a former Sonics' money pit, $5.2 million this season to play five minutes. He scored four points and pulled in three rebounds, which doesn't really seem to warrant more than a million dollars per minute.In the NFL, teams cut the guy, prorate the contract's signing bonus, and move on. There's some dead money, sure, but it's not haunting every franchise like blood-sucking zombies.There's an upper threshold to the sympathy you might feel for owners, of course. And you can't legislate good judgment. These guys made some awful decisions. And most owners realize that the annual accounting is secondary to the most relevant money figure: how much the value of the franchise increases over time.But it's hard for a fan of the game to hear that a franchise might pack and move for the lack of a new arena when they remember the hundreds of millions in salary that has been squandered.The Sonics committed almost $70 million in contracts just to McIlvaine and Booth. Granted, post players aren't always asked to score, but they should be able to at least get up and down the court. McIlvaine, a very likable gentleman who at least had some shot-blocking skills, never made more than three baskets in a game in his entire NBA career. McIlvaine ended up with the New Jersey Nets, who finally decided to hand him nearly $13 million to stop showing up. James and Booth were a tandem of futility for several seasons in Seattle. Mixing in Vitaly Potapenko, the Sonics paid more than $15 million one season to have three post guys barely average in double figures combined.Perhaps because he looked so appealing when compared to Booth, James landed a five-year, $29 million contract from the Knicks.Last year, a disgruntled Fortson played in 14 games for the Sonics, scoring 40 points. He was paid more than $6 million.One of the only ways to be rid of a bad situation is to trade it for another one. Eager to dump Baker, the Sonics collaborated on a trade with Boston in which part of the return was guard Anderson. Baker collected more than $12 million for averaging 5.2 points a game. Anderson played in only 38 games for the Sonics in return for $9 million. That's more than $20 million just to recycle used parts.Two seasons earlier, the aging Ewing gobbled up $14 million of the Sonics' moolah.Guaranteed contracts.Sometimes the NFL way of doing business seems cold. Sometimes a great player lands the contract he deserves but his body simply can't hold up. He gets cut and it's over. But in most cases, it's a way of being cleansed of bad contracts.The discussion is moot, of course. It's not as if the NBA's collective bargaining agreement can be ripped up and rewritten, not without a destructive labor dispute with the players.And when the fans in a city are on the verge of losing a team, a recount of all the wasted money seems all the more painful.(Contact Dave Boling at dave.boling@thenewstribune.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)